Wednesday, 15 May 2013

Now There Are Four?

Only one chick in the Great Tit nestbox first thing this morning but when Mrs GT left the nest for a short while just now I think I could see four chicks. Hope the rain soon clears away and the Sun comes out. There is plenty of insect life around when the Sun is shining and the parent birds are soon going to be very busy feeding the kids.

Empty egg shells being taken out and feeding seems to have started well with both adults bringing suitably small food.

Congratulations to you all, John :-) I’ve been taking a look through your pages and this stage seems to be 10 days behind last year. This late season seems to be even later up my way, I was reading on the blog of the nature reserve we visit (Oldest known breeding female Osprey in UK and perhaps Europe, has laid an impressive 4 eggs there this year) that the season is 3-4 weeks behind up our way. Their Blue tits only began nesting building on May 6th.

Meanwhile back in my garden nestbox on the 9th of May a few small pieces of moss arrived. By the 12th a bit more moss was in but not in proper nest building amounts and I considered this a case of a female considering two nestboxes but this was very late, surely we couldn’t be getting nesting action now? We still had our rooster which I suspected to be a male based on behaviour in the nestbox. However, when I came home tonight there is a good bit of nesting material in our box (still bare floor too) and now there’s no rooster! Perhaps we have the nesting game on after all. It’s very late if it is and it will be fascinating to see what happens next - if anything.